Chapter 9
What Social Enterprises
Should Work On
“But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?
For even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you,
what credit is that to you?
For even sinners do the same.
And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back,
what credit is that to you?
For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back.
But love your enemies, do good, and lend,
hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great,
and you will be sons of the Most High.
For He is kind to the unthankful and evil.
Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.”
— Luke 6:32-36 (NKJV)
Social entrepreneurs often take the unconventional view that
they should establish organizations solely focused on providing products and services
that will do the most good for everyone else, whether the beneficiaries are
their enemies or their friends, rather than focus on personal financial gain.
Clearly, such a commitment has been formed either by God’s directions as
described in Luke 6:32-36 or by an exceptionally warm heart for others.
You may be scratching your head
wondering how enterprises created to serve such social purposes are different
from the typical for-profit or nonprofit organization. Let me explain through
some descriptions, distinctions, and examples.
I don’t know of an accurate,
narrow definition of a social enterprise because my research shows that such
organizations employ a wide variety of structures and approaches. Instead of
attempting to provide a definition, let me describe what I’ve observed: Those
enterprises typically seek to optimize a social benefit as their top priority
through making breakthrough improvements to the product and service offerings
they supply for those who need the benefit and cannot supply it for themselves.
How, then, is a social enterprise
different from a foundation? While a foundation typically accomplishes its
beneficial role by funding socially helpful activities performed by others,
social enterprises directly engage in providing the helpful offerings. Social
enterprises may be the recipients of foundation funds, especially during the
development and testing of their business models (the “who,” “what,” “when,”
“why,” “where,” “how,” and “how much” of serving stakeholders, who are all those
affected by their activities). Ownership of social enterprises may also be
donated by entrepreneurs to foundations when that step will enable more social
benefits to be produced through attracting gifts and reducing taxes.
A for-profit enterprise’s primary
purposes are typically to earn a profit above its cost of capital and to
increase its value during any stock sales by its owners. Serving any social
purposes would normally be considered by a for-profit firm only when such
accomplishments are obviously beneficial to profits and value improvement. An
emerging view among a minority in the business community is that adding social
benefits can be helpful for achieving profit- and value maximizing, especially
for consumer products and services companies, by attracting more customers and
providing more encouragement not to waste raw materials, energy, and other
resources.
A nonprofit enterprise’s primary
purpose is to accomplish some public good. However, a nonprofit enterprise may
or may not be seeking to make substantial innovations. As a result, some social
enterprises may be established as nonprofit legal entities in part to reduce
the taxes that would otherwise increase their costs or to attract more
resources from donors when tax deductions are available for gifts. In many
cases, the decision to seek nonprofit status is used to help clarify to
potential beneficiaries that no one is trying to take economic advantage of the
gifts that are received.
To help you appreciate what I
mean by these distinctions, let’s look at some examples starting with one that
will be familiar to many in North America: the
food company, Newman’s Own, Inc. The company’s all-natural grocery products
(which started with salad dressings) were developed by the late actor, Paul
Newman, and his friend, A. E. Hotchner, to be healthier and tastier for
consumers and to provide more social benefits for suppliers. In doing so, the
success of Newman’s Own also helped interest larger food companies in providing
healthier, more socially beneficial products.
Newman’s Own, Inc., is owned by
Newman’s Own Foundation. All profits from the operating company’s products are
donated by the Newman’s Own Foundation (less the foundation’s small
administrative costs) to various charities, and several hundred million dollars
have been provided in this way.
In this example, Newman’s Own,
Inc., is a nonprofit social enterprise, and being owned by a foundation makes
it legally easier for the company’s profits to support worthy activities
performed by various charities. If the only purpose of Newman’s Own, Inc., were
to benefit its stakeholders (and not to help any who aren’t stakeholders),
there would be no need for a foundation. Under such an alternative purpose and
ownership, Newman’s Own products could simply be sold at lower prices and be
reformulated to provide even more beneficial ingredients so that consumers
would receive more for their money until no profit was left to be shared with
charities. For more information about these two organizations, go to http://www.newmansown.com/
and http://www.newmansownfoundation.org/.
Now, let’s take a quick trip to India
and check out the Aravind Eye Care System’s medical activities there. Aravind
was established in 1976 by Dr. Govindappa. Venkataswamy to treat eye conditions
that often lead to blindness when left untreated, an unfortunately common
circumstance for many poor people in lesser developed countries. The
organization’s purpose is to serve as many patients as possible while also
making big improvements in eye-care methods and training eye-care practitioners
in the most effective practices. As part of its activities, Aravind
manufactures some ophthalmic products (such as the intraocular lenses used in
cataract surgery) to improve quality and to reduce costs.
How is Aravind different from any
other eye-care product or service provider? Typically, such operations are
based on a for-profit purpose and legal structure. Aravind is actually a hybrid
organization, combining for-profit and nonprofit practices. What’s unusual is
that Aravind uses for-profit activities as its primary source of funds instead
of the way that many charities solicit donations to permit serving those in
need. This nonprofit organization serves two kinds of patients: those who can
afford to pay and those who cannot. Profits from treating the paying patients
subsidize services for those who cannot pay.
You may be imagining that the
paying patients are charged high prices to allow for more poor people to be
helped. That’s not the case. Instead, Aravind has become a world leader in
cutting the costs and improving the outcomes of many eye-care services,
especially cataract surgery.
The results are so extraordinary
that the National Health Service in the U.K.
has flown thousands of its patients to India for cataract surgeries that
are conducted by Aravind physicians. Even after paying for the travel and other
expenses, the total costs to the National Health Service are lower and there
are fewer surgical complications for these U.K. citizens than what the patients
would experience from treatment by National Health Service surgeons back home.
As a result of its innovations
and educational activities, Aravind is advancing the practice of eye care for
everyone, but even more rapidly for poor people around the world as the use of
its business model and highly effective, low-cost practices spreads. Most
recently, Aravind has been training its competitors in how to copy its most
effective practices. In doing so, Aravind’s approach has made it clear that
medical executives and practitioners often lack the skills necessary to create
innovative business models and to make cost-reducing breakthroughs in improving
care. If you would like to learn more about the organization’s experiences,
visit Aravind’s Web site, http://www.aravind.org/. The scope of what this
social enterprise does is increasing rapidly, so be sure to read the latest
annual report while you are there. At the time of this writing, a valuable
history of the organization had been recently published, Infinite Vision: How Aravind Became the World’s Greatest Business Case
for Compassion by Pavithra K. Mehta and Suchitra Shenoy (Berrett-Koehler,
2011), that I recommend to you as well. The book describes the spiritual
aspects of that organization becoming an effective social enterprise in more
detail than you may find elsewhere.
Let’s next consider a more
recently established organization, the Bangladeshi social joint venture,
Grameen Danone Foods, founded by Bangladesh’s depositor-owned
Grameen Bank (a social enterprise that primarily provides microloans and
educational assistance to help eliminate poverty) and France’s publicly owned,
for-profit Groupe Danone (best known for its yogurt, bottled water, and baby
food). The joint venture provides a lower-priced, healthier yogurt snack that
improves nutrition for children in poor families at low cost through an
innovative, small-scale manufacturing technology and employment of local small
farmers as suppliers and poor women as distributors. The company also seeks to
minimize any environmental harm through its use of solar power and innovative
packaging.
Grameen Bank brought to this
joint venture its local knowledge of a pressing social need for serving poor
children and its experience in establishing enterprises that improve the
quality of life and provide more income for poor people living in Bangladesh’s
rural areas. Groupe Danone brought to the venture its depth of expertise in
creating, manufacturing, and distributing yogurt products.
Unlike many joint ventures involving
only for-profit, publicly owned enterprises, Groupe Danone didn’t connect with
Grameen Bank to enrich its shareholders. The joint venture was founded with the
understanding that it would provide no profit or dividends on its investment to
its founders, but would focus on avoiding losses. Any profits would be
reinvested to expand the company so more poor people would be served and more
kinds of nutritional products developed.
Groupe Danone’s financial
expectation was simply to have its initial capital investment returned over
time. The original intent was for the company’s stake to eventually be sold at
cost to the poor people who work in and supply the joint venture. Groupe Danone
stands prepared to provide additional technical expertise after such a stock
sale should other products or services need to be developed for the venture.
Despite the lack of profit
incentive, Groupe Danone’s management felt very well rewarded for their efforts
by having the chance to see the good that their activities have helped
accomplish. The joint venture’s work gave their lives more meaning than would
have occurred by focusing on traditional for-profit activities in serving
wealthier customers.
The heart of this venture’s
brilliance is ultimately found in the innovations that create so many more
nutritional, poverty-reducing, and environmental benefits at low cost. Without
the combined skills of the Grameen Bank and Groupe Danone, such innovations
would not have occurred. In the long run, however, the venture’s success in serving
rural poor people will primarily depend on the hard work and insight of its
employees, suppliers, and distributors who serve local households.
If you would like to learn more
about this venture, its founding and initial development are described in Creating a World without Poverty — Social
Business and the Future of Capitalism,
by Muhammad Yunus (PublicAffairs, 2008). You’ll also gain a helpful
perspective on principles that can be applied for creating social enterprises
that succeed by complementary organizations working together to make socially
beneficial breakthroughs that neither one alone could accomplish.
With these three examples of
social enterprises in mind, let me discuss possible roles for social
entrepreneurs and enterprises in establishing and improving 2,000 percent
nations. While the potential list of roles is quite long, I believe that the
following are the largest and most beneficial opportunities for social
enterprises:
• Help nonprofit and for-profit
leaders learn about the potential to make more breakthroughs in providing
complementary, exponential benefit increases for Godly purposes by founding and
teaming with others in social enterprises.
• Increase the capabilities of
experienced social entrepreneurs to develop more complementary, exponential
benefit breakthroughs for Godly purposes.
• Assist people who would like to
advance social purposes to learn the advantages of encouraging the founding of,
establishing of, and support of social enterprises for Godly purposes.
• Alert political leaders to the
benefits of creating more incentives and reducing barriers for establishing and
expanding highly effective, innovative social enterprises seeking to serve
Godly purposes.
Let’s first consider helping
nonprofit and for-profit leaders learn about the potential to make more
breakthroughs in providing complementary, exponential benefit increases for
Godly purposes by founding and teaming with others in social enterprises.
Help Nonprofit and For-Profit Leaders Learn
about the Potential to Make More Breakthroughs
in Providing Complementary, Exponential Benefit
Increases
for Godly Purposes by Founding and Teaming
with Others
in Social Enterprises
So speak and so do as those who will be
judged by the law of liberty.
For judgment is without mercy to the one
who has shown no mercy.
Mercy triumphs over judgment.
— James 2:12-13 (NKJV)
A very small percentage of social enterprises have made
breakthroughs in providing complementary, exponential benefit increases for
Godly purposes. In addition, many of such highly fruitful enterprises are not
well known beyond their own stakeholders. As a consequence of such limited
awareness of what has been done, most of the potential to serve Godly purposes
through social enterprises is being ignored.
Social enterprises that document
and communicate their experiences with making complementary, exponential
benefit increases and the lessons learned will have larger influences than
those that don’t do so. In making that comparison, I’m reminded of how
establishing the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the United States
helped to increase interest in and the effectiveness of quality management for
operations in businesses, health care, education, and nonprofit organizations
there. All Baldrige award winners were required to host site visits from those
who wanted to learn from the award winners’ experiences, and as a result of
such visits thousands of organizations shifted their attention and actions in
more productive ways. Although highly fruitful social enterprises are not
required to open their doors in the same way, it would be beneficial if they
would all voluntarily choose to do so.
Scholars and book publishers
interested in social enterprises have made it easier to learn about the more
fruitful practices through publishing research in articles and books. No doubt
popular interest in the subject will ultimately grow, and it will become easier
for those who are new to the field to locate such essential information about
Godly fruitfulness.
Any exemplary social enterprises
should also encourage leaders of for-profit and nonprofit organizations who
want to establish social enterprises for Godly purposes to serve as unpaid
volunteers or to work as employees in the exemplary organizations. In this way,
more hands-on training can be received by those who want to duplicate what the
most fruitful social enterprises are doing. Think of this suggestion in terms
of the differences between visiting McDonald’s world headquarters for the first
time to begin evaluating whether to become a franchisee and working at
McDonald’s Hamburger University to learn how to operate an effective franchise
after purchasing one.
Successful social enterprises can
also help draw attention to new kinds of potential by creating still more social
enterprises that serve different purposes from their original ones. For
instance, the Grameen Bank extended its scope beyond microlending and
antipoverty education to establish the Village Phone program to help poor women
in rural communities establish wireless payphone services. Those who studied
this new program were later able to apply it in nations where the Grameen Bank
did not operate.
Teaming with those who are
interested in serving Godly social purposes and lack the knowledge and
experience to do so can be of even greater significance for helping leaders
learn. That’s exactly what happened when the Grameen Bank teamed with Groupe
Danone. Not only can such a new enterprise be copied elsewhere, but Groupe
Danone also learned how to work with local microfinance organizations around
the world to develop still other types of ventures that could apply its product
and operational expertise. As a result, a large increase in innovation
breakthroughs by social enterprise might follow.
Let’s next consider how to
increase the capabilities of experienced social entrepreneurs to develop more
complementary, exponential benefit breakthroughs for Godly purposes.
Increase the Capabilities of Experienced
Social Entrepreneurs
to Develop More Complementary, Exponential
Benefit Breakthroughs for Godly Purposes
For if you love those who love you, what
reward have you?
Do not even the tax collectors do the
same?
And if you greet your brethren only,
what do you do more than others?
Do not even the tax collectors do so?
Therefore you shall be perfect, just as
your Father in heaven is perfect.
— Matthew 5:46-48 (NKJV)
Increasing the capabilities of experienced social
entrepreneurs to develop more complementary, exponential benefit breakthroughs
for Godly purposes presents many challenges. Let me list some of the most
important ones that are addressed in this section:
• Removing any mission-focused
blinders that social entrepreneurs have
• Interesting social enterprise
leaders in process development
• Opening minds to the possibility
that major opportunities are being missed
• Shifting attention from “doing
more of the same” to “accomplishing much more with the same or fewer resources”
Let’s look first at removing any
mission-focused blinders that social enterprise leaders have. Many social
entrepreneurs primarily rely on passion for their organizational missions to
attract and to retain talent and resources. Drawn by the appeal of these
purposes, many people also approach these leaders with agendas outside of the
social enterprises’ missions.
The most successful leaders know
well that it’s important to avoid trying to do things that aren’t part of their
organizations’ purposes. The result of taking on new missions can be to
dissolve existing passion and support while creating lots of practical
problems.
Sensing that danger, many
successful social entrepreneurs will do anything to avoid changing any aspect
of their current missions … including even how their slogans are worded.
Consequently, such social entrepreneurs may well reject the notion of adding
more benefits for stakeholders due to justified concern about creating harm
from shifting their missions.
I agree that such concerns are
valid and deserve to be seriously evaluated. Before making any changes, a
social enterprise should carefully investigate how and when more benefits can
be successfully added to its mission. Certified breakthrough tutors who
specialize in working with social enterprises could be helpful resources for
performing such investigations and for drawing the appropriate lessons.
Now, let’s consider the
challenges of interesting social entrepreneurs in process development who have
ignored that dimension of improving their organizations. The challenge can be
quite large because it can require a huge change in focus. For example, I
believe that research will probably show many social enterprises have been
innovative primarily due to having very few spelled-out processes.
Because those involved with such
organizations often want to do better due to deeply held concerns about those
who need benefits, many people spend lots of time dreaming up ways to
accomplish more. In the absence of rules saying that changes cannot be made,
innovators quickly start applying their ideas. Some of the ideas work, and some
make a mess. Following either result, such organizations will then move on to
trying other innovations that different people have created. Much progress,
punctuated with occasional trauma and setbacks from innovation flops, will
follow.
In such innovative environments,
processes can accelerate improvements by making successful innovations more
effective and by putting some limitations on how much damage unsuccessful
innovation attempts can cause. As an example of the former kind of improvement
opportunity, an innovation often includes many unnecessary complications, a
great deal of custom work that has to be performed under pressure, and minimal
automation. Studying how to make the innovation more efficient will almost
always reveal useful simplifications, opportunities for rule-based actions that
almost anyone can correctly take, and automation that speeds benefits being
created while slashing costs and investments. As an example of the latter kind
of improvement opportunity, a review process can be set up so that those who
will be affected by the innovation can comment in advance on how to make the
changes more effective before a trial begins.
To interest social entrepreneurs
in process development, someone needs to document how such work has benefited
other social enterprises and to arrange for social entrepreneurs to observe
what has been done and to hear how those affected feel about the changes. In
many cases, improving processes within a social enterprise will require
delegating such development work to someone in the organization with such
interests and skills.
Next, let’s consider the delicate
task of opening minds to the possibility that major opportunities are being
missed. As background, let me share a story that Peter Drucker told me about
his experiences as a consultant to the U.S. government during World War
II. His assignment was to help some military contractors increase their output.
On successive days, he visited two contractors who were producing the identical
items in nearby locations. The first contractor was highly efficient, producing
lots of items with only a small percentage being faulty. The second contractor
was making a mess, scrapping almost all of its production. When asked if they
were aware of one another’s practices, both companies indicated total
ignorance. After the second company spent a few days studying what the first
company was doing, the struggling contractor soon became almost as effective
and efficient as the organization it copied.
I believe that similar learning
opportunities exist among social enterprises that are engaged in serving Godly
purposes. Of the social enterprise leaders I have met who were serving God’s
purposes, none have been aware of how effective or ineffective their results
were compared to what others were doing in similar activities. After becoming
aware of what others were accomplishing, many minds were quickly opened to the
possibilities of making useful changes.
Social entrepreneurs would
benefit from forming associations with those who engage in somewhat similar
activities and from arranging for the associations to compare the practices
member organizations employ to provide suggestions for what practices should be
improved and how to do so for each enterprise. Hopefully, any social
entrepreneurs who read this chapter will feel moved to do so. Certified
breakthrough tutors who specialize in working with social enterprises can also
help by suggesting to their students that such associations be established for
this purpose.
In addition, social entrepreneurs
need to open their minds to thinking about what’s the most that they can
accomplish with the available resources, after considering that most
individuals, families, communities, regions, and nations needing help won’t
receive any benefits from their activities as they are currently provided. In
many cases, it may be possible to deliver a more limited set of benefits of the
type currently provided at a much lower cost and with reduced effort so that
huge increases can be made in how many are served. For instance, a homebuilding
social enterprise that normally produces a standard home for needy families
might also provide easy-to-use directions for needy people with skill in
building to construct a home at a small percentage of the cost of purchasing
one or the social enterprise making the total provision.
In other cases, an expensive part
of what’s being provided may provide only a tiny part of the total benefit. In
such a case, the expensive part might be left out. For example, many social
enterprises that are funded by donors who sponsor an individual, a family, a
community, or a project incur major overhead costs in facilitating
communications between donors and those served. Investigation might reveal that
many donors and beneficiaries would be well satisfied with less costly ways of
keeping track of how one another are doing.
Let’s now consider how to best
assist anyone who would like to advance social purposes to learn the advantages
of encouraging the founding of, establishing of, and support for social enterprises.
Assist People Who Would Like to
Advance Social Purposes
to Learn the Advantages of
Encouraging the Founding of,
Establishing of, and Support for Social Enterprises
Then Joshua the son of Nun called the
priests and said to them,
“Take up the ark of the covenant, and
let seven priests
bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns
before the ark of the LORD.”
And he said to the people,
“Proceed, and march around the city,
and let him who is armed advance before
the ark of the LORD.”
— Joshua 6:6-7 (NKJV)
As the preparations for the fall of Jericho showed, God sometimes uses His people
to demonstrate support for His purposes through worship before providing the
Godly result. God may direct action through specific instructions provided by
heavenly messengers, prophets, and the Holy Spirit, but most often He simply
tugs on the heart strings of His people so that they will address a distressing
situation. Heart-led servants are much more effective for Him after they learn
more about what needs to be done to complete His will. Without such
instructions, the Israelites might never have marched around Jericho in the way that God intended, and the
walls would never have collapsed.
When attending conferences about
solving social problems, I’m continually struck that most of the speakers
appear to be directed by pure hearts in their desires and attempts to help.
Unfortunately, almost none of the speakers and attendees appear to have a sense
of exactly what to do that would serve God’s purposes.
As an example, many Christians
who desperately want to alleviate some particular kind of suffering will only
seek support for methods that are disconnected from God. For instance, some
Christians may promote increased government action … despite knowing that
governments will usually insist that there be no identification with God, Jesus
Christ, or the Holy Spirit. To me, that approach is as if the Israelites had
circled Jericho shouting praise for the idea of ending war while leaving the
Ark of the Covenant and the priests at home.
Social enterprises operating
under Christ’s banner can be vastly more effective in accomplishing tasks that
Christian hearts are called to encourage and to perform than are totally
secular organizations. Such Christian social enterprises will be blessed by His
support, gain directions from the Bible and the Holy Spirit, enjoy favor from
prayers made for His assistance, and draw energy and resources from the willing
hearts of large numbers of believers. Rather than solely sharing this critical
lesson at secular conferences and political get-togethers, I believe that
Christian Bible studies on the subject also need to be provided to expand
understanding of how to address social needs that God wants met by following
His directions.
To encourage this Bible-based
teaching, I believe there need to be people who work at or have worked at an
effective Christian social enterprise who go from church to church helping
Christians learn what social-improvement tasks the Bible directs believers to
do. Those people can also show how innovative social enterprises that seek to
provide complementary, exponential benefits can help us do God’s will more
effectively by seeking His guidance and support.
Such people will also be able to
help connect those who would like to carry the message forward with one another
as well as to help introduce them to those who want to found, to expand, and to
support a given Christian social enterprise. They can also help avoid
unnecessary duplication of efforts by pointing out where an existing Christian
social enterprise is an effective vehicle for doing His will.
Christian social enterprises can
also improve by learning how to be more effective in preparing their staff
members, volunteers, beneficiaries, and supporters to attract more attention
and interest from those with caring hearts who aren’t yet connected to the
enterprises. Here’s another opportunity for those with such experience to
specialize in providing their assistance by concentrating on one Christian
enterprise at a time and later sharing the lessons of what was learned with
others who are skilled in the field so that the body of practice in this
activity grows to be stronger and more effective.
Over time, developing Christian
social enterprises that make complementary, exponential breakthroughs can also
have testimonial value in helping lead more people to accept the Lord’s free
gift of Salvation (after repenting of their sins and accepting Him as their
Lord and Savior). Can you imagine how impressed caring unsaved people would be
by God’s mighty hand providing vastly more bountiful results for Christian
social enterprises than for ones that avoid following Him and His directions?
Such a result might be a little like God leading Christians to defeat their
enemies by simply telling them to march around their opponents.
Let’s finally shift our attention
to alerting political leaders to the benefits of creating more incentives for
and of reducing barriers to establishing and expanding highly effective,
innovative social enterprises seeking to serve Godly purposes.
Alert Political Leaders to the Benefits
of Creating
More Incentives and Reducing Barriers
for
Establishing and Expanding Highly Effective,
Innovative
Social Enterprises Seeking to Serve
Godly Purposes
I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem;
They shall never hold their peace day or
night.
— Isaiah 62:6 (NKJV)
In persuading political leaders to consider such changes, I
believe that someone has to make the case that social enterprises will be able
to increase the development of or improvement of a 2,000 percent nation. It
would be helpful for a foundation to support a scholar who wants to perform an
investigation into the effectiveness of social enterprises and what roles
should be encouraged. Rather than just doing one such investigation, I suggest
that it could be more helpful to focus on the needs of a single nation and to
document a measurement methodology that could be used to conduct parallel
investigations in all the other nations.
Alerting political leaders to any
such benefits will be much more important in some nations than in others.
That’s due to differences in how many hurdles and barriers lie in the way of
establishing and conducting such enterprises from country to country. The
United Nations often looks at the hurdles for and barriers to establishing a
business and finds wide variations from nation to nation. Although I’m not
aware of any similar study for social enterprises, I estimate that differences
in hurdles and barriers to establishing social enterprises are much greater
from country to country, with the largest and most difficult hurdles and
barriers being most often found in nations where highly effective social
enterprises to serve Godly purposes are the most needed.
In making this observation, I’m
well aware that there is much risk in having too little regulation of social
enterprises. Many times these organizations are established by well-meaning
people with little knowledge of what’s needed or what the consequences of an
action might be in a given country. As a result, those seeking to access any
benefits that such social entrepreneurs provide might well be unintentionally
harmed. Undoubtedly, there are also going to be people who want to use social
enterprises to take advantage of others, especially if such organizations
receive less government scrutiny.
The right answer in most cases
will be to make it relatively easy to establish such enterprises on an
extremely small and limited scale, and to focus regulation on being sure that
what is being done by newer, small social enterprises is constructive before
allowing expansions in size and scope.
Such an approach can also be
helpful for creating incentives. In reviewing new social enterprises, those
organizations that are performing well might then become eligible for whatever
incentives a government decides to provide. Such an approach would help to
focus attention on excellence while also discouraging evildoers from trying to
take advantage of donors or beneficiaries.
What incentives might countries
provide? I believe that the most important ones involve publicity. By making
many more people aware that a social enterprise is performing well, talented
people, donors, and volunteers will be attracted. From such resources, expanded
benefits can be provided. Similar to the Baldrige Award I mentioned earlier in
the chapter, a nation could provide new awards for social enterprises that
perform at a defined high level of putting together complementary benefit
breakthroughs for Godly purposes.
Other useful incentives might
involve making social enterprises eligible to be hired to perform official
government tasks. For instance, a social enterprise involved in food
distribution for poor people in refugee camps might be given a contract to
perform similar distribution activities for poor people in the vicinity but who
don’t live in the refugee camps. Governments should avoid automatically making
such agreements, requiring social enterprises to compete with every other
qualified organization and individual. Otherwise, complacency and slack
practices might be encouraged.
Social enterprises may turn out
to be most useful in poorer nations, especially if such organizations are
founded, staffed, and directed by people from such nations. These organizations
may be more able to resist being weakened by any corrupt practices that are
common in the nation. The nation’s government can also focus on creating more
honest activities so that self-dealing by bureaucrats won’t dominate working
with these enterprises. Freed from many corrupt practices, social enterprises
may well soar higher relative to other kinds of organizations in such a nation.
I pray that this result will follow.
In Chapter 10, we consider a
controversial subject for some people: what for-profit companies should seek to
do in serving Godly purposes.
Copyright
© 2007, 2010, 2011, 2012 by Donald W. Mitchell.
All rights reserved.
No part of
this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in
any form
or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other
electronic
or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the
publisher,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews
and
certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Scripture
quotations marked (NKJV)
are taken
from the New King James Version.
Copyright
© 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment